I wondered as an avid reader of your paper whether other people share my concerns about our NHS.

The NHS has provided since its beginning in 1948, its socialist founder Aneurin Bevan has achieved what no other country has at the same cost, comprehensive equal access care regardless or irrespective of income.

This most cherished institution is well on its way to becoming a US-style privatised insurance-based service in the next few years.

This is the result of 20 years’ lobbying by mainly American private healthcare companies. They as a matter of course have shareholders to take care of the NHS budget – milking it is putting is extremely mildly.

Our corrupt parliamentary system, 220 MPs which are mainly Conservative but not all, voted on Andrew Lansley’s Health and Social Care Act had interests in private healthcare.

One in three GPs has a financial interest in private healthcare companies. I urge your readership to join the Patient Participation Group at your GP practice and ask it to set up meetings to explain how local patient services are being affected by cuts and privatisation. If there is no Patient Participation Group, ask the practice to set one up. They’re all supposed to have one. Ask your GP to mark your notes with ‘No Private Providers’.

Jim Dry

Morpeth Ave, Borehamwood